Wednesday, 13 July 2011

The Grey Side of Life

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It started with turning 50 and the increasing numbers of silver hairs - as I only get my hair cut short 3 times a year, the 'Mallen Streaks' ( remember that? ) are more becoming prominent. Then 12 x 12 chose grey as their current colourplay theme. I've gone through grey quilt phases myself - for the series of honesty pieces but also 'winter trees' , an enlarged version of my first ever journal quilt in January 2003

In Elizabeth Barton's masterclass at FoQ and more recently Quilt University class'working in series' the importance of tonal studies was emphasised - something I'm really bad at sticking to as my love of colour means I jump right in.

The final straw was mixing greys from tiny dollops of primaries in Jo Budd's workshop at CQ summer school - a surprisingly absorbing occupation

For those that asked about the pigment dyes used - they're selectasine screenprinting inks available from George Weil. I thought at first that the acrylics I have already would do the job but I doubt I could achieve such wonderful monoprinted marks as these without the acrylic drying too fast. (See how easily I get distracted by colour!)

So it was with a sense of inevitability then that I signed up for Sketchbook Project 2012 with theme ' The Grey Side of Life'. A marked contrast to my 2010 Sketchbook ( which has just been digitised) where I swapped the horrid Moleskine paper for colourful Khadi!!

Sometimes things come together in a surprising way and the elements from workshops and classes that stick are not necessarily the most obvious. I'm off to fish my greys out of my stash ,which is not small!

PS I can now hear properly again having had the remains of an earplug hoovered out at ENT outpatients. A bit sore and sensitive to noise, it's foam earplugs from now on!